A Great Boss is Confident, But Not Really Sure

Recently, I posted a list of 12 Things Good Bosses Believe. Now I’m following up by delving into each one of them. This post is about the sixth belief: “I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.”

My favorite track on Tom Petty’s 2006 album Highway Companion is a song called “Saving Grace.” About halfway through, he closes off a verse by singing: “You’re confident but not really sure.” That’s a state of mind that sounds paradoxical, but at times it really is true. In fact, it’s the essence of what developmental psychologist John Meacham called the “attitude of wisdom.” And it’s a good description of some bosses I know, who strike a healthy balance between knowing and doubting.

Meacham’s insight, which was developed much further by one of my intellectual heroes, organizational psychologist Karl Weick, was that the people we consider wise have the courage to act on their beliefs and convictions at the same time that they have the humility to realize that they might be wrong, and must be prepared to change their beliefs and actions when better information comes along.

When I first became enamored with wisdom after reading Weick’s writings (perhaps eight years ago) I heard a great conversation about it at a conference put on by Harvard Business School Publishing in Silicon Valley. There, I heard innovation guru Clay Christensen interview long-time Intel CEO Andy Grove, who had recently relinquished that title and become Chairman. I took careful notes and then a few weeks later went back to the organizers to request a transcript, which they were kind enough to send me. Grove gave his own testimony to this notion of “Confident but not really sure.” I’ve edited this for length (see the whole thing and more of my thoughts on it here), but here’s what he advised:

None of us have a real understanding of where we are heading. I don’t. I have senses about it. But decisions don’t wait, investment decisions or personal decisions and prioritization don’t wait, for that picture to be clarified. You have to make them when you have to make them. So you take your shots and clean up the bad ones later. I think it is very important for you to do two things: act on your temporary conviction as if it was a real conviction; and when you realize that you are wrong, correct course very quickly.

This balancing act between confidence and doubt is a hallmark of great bosses. The confidence inspires people to follow them and believe in them, but the doubt helps ensure they get things right. They are always listening and watching for evidence that they might be wrong, and inviting others to challenge their conclusions (albeit usually in private and in “backstage” conversations).

One of my favorite books on the nitty-gritty of what wise bosses do is Notes on Directing, where late renowned stage director Frank Hauser (with help from co-author Russell Reich) provided 130 leadership lessons. It is chock-full of great advice that any boss can learn from. Hauser argues that “A clear, confident presence and strong direction are highly reassuring for everyone,” but later makes clear that a good director changes his or her mind when a better idea comes along:

As the director, you have three weapons: “Yes,” “No,” and “I don’t know.” Use them. Don’t dither; you can always change your mind later. Nobody minds that. What they do mind is the two-minute agonizing when all the actor has asked is “Do I get up now.”

Many of the bosses I admire most — from P&G’s AG Lafley, to IDEO’s David Kelley, to Pepsi’s Indra Nooyi, to venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Randy Komisar, to Xerox’s Anne Mulcahy, to less well-known bosses like JetBlue Director Bonny Simi — seem to have this ability to act confidently on what they know, while doubting their knowledge.

Take Bonny, for example, who is a three-time Olympian in the luge and still an active commercial pilot (both excellent metaphors for the need to maintain forward motion while making judicious course corrections!). She recently led JetBlue’s successful effort (after a pair of failed ones) to develop procedures for delaying with flight delays and airport shutdowns caused by bad weather. Dealing with such “irregular operations” is crucial to JetBlue’s reputation, even its survival. Remember its infamous failure to deal with a winter storm delay, when it kept thousands of passengers packed in planes sitting on socked-in runways for hours and hours? That was February 14th 2007, and the incident not only made for horrible press, it ultimately cost CEO David Neeleman his job. Bonny and her team tackled the challenge through a process of prototyping, identifying all the steps involved in a model shut down and re-opening of airport operations, and then putting their refined system through its paces again and again under different scenarios, looking for the ways it could fail them.

Iterative prototyping like this is so powerful because the attitude of wisdom is at its heart. Each iteration represented a decisive act: Bonny’s team had arrived at a new approach they felt confident about implementing. But even while believing it would work, they knew their job was to stay atuned to new information coming in, look for signs of problems and imperfections, and find ways to improve upon it further. They were confident, but not really sure.

Early signs suggest that the “irregular operations” systems and procedures are a huge improvement; they worked perfectly earlier this year when JetBlue was forced to suspend operations at Kennedy Airport for a day as a result of a bad storm: There were no stranded passengers on planes, operations resumed to nearly normal levels the next day, and it was all so routine that the press didn’t write a thing about it. The company, Chip and Dan Heath tell us, now recovers from major delays and setbacks 40% faster than just a year or so ago. That saves it millions of dollars, and buys incalculable amounts of customer goodwill.

To underscore the point once more, I will steal a phrase from Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo, who has long argued that the best leaders and the best organizations have strong opinions that are weakly held. Strong opinions reflect and instill confidence, and also provide clear guidance about the direction that people should try to go right now. But, since those opinions are weakly held, they don’t stand as barriers to change when better information comes along. This ability to feel, express, and act on strong beliefs without clinging to them irrationally — the state of mind that Tom Petty captured in a well-sung line — is the common refrain in Bonny Simi’s problem-solving, Andy Grove’s decision-making, and Frank Hauser’s sound advice to every kind of director: “Don’t dither; you can always change your mind later.”

Robert Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He studies and writes about management, innovation, and the nitty-gritty of organizational life. His new book is Good Boss, Bad Boss, forthcoming from Business Plus.

Robert Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford Engineering School, where he is co-director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Organization, cofounder of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and a cofounder and active member of the new “d.school.” His new book, with Huggy Rao, is Scaling Up Excellence: Getting To More Without Settling For Less.